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Now if we do not mean anything by Relation but are victims of
words, none of the relations mentioned can exist: Relation will
be a notion void of content.
Suppose however that we do possess ourselves of objective truth
when in comparing two points of time we pronounce one prior, or
posterior, to the other, that priority does entail something
distinct from the objects to which it refers; admit an objective
truth behind the relation of left and right: does this apply also
to magnitudes, and is the relation exhibiting excess and
deficiency also something distinct from the quantities involved?
Now one thing is double of another quite apart from our speech or
thought; one thing possesses and another is possessed before we
notice the fact; equals do not await our comparison but- and this
applies to Quality as well as Quantity- rest upon an identity
existing between the objects compared: in all the conditions in
which we assert Relation the mutual relation exists over and
above the objects; we perceive it as already existent; our
knowledge is directed upon a thing, there to be known- a clear
testimony to the reality of Relation.
In these circumstances we can no longer put the question of its
existence. We have simply to distinguish: sometimes the relation
subsists while the objects remain unaltered and even apart;
sometimes it depends upon their combination; sometimes, while
they remain unchanged, the relation utterly ceases, or, as
happens with right and near, becomes different. These are the
facts which chiefly account for the notion that Relation has no
reality in such circumstances.
Our task, thus, is to give full value to this elusive character
of Relation, and, then to enquire what there is that is constant
in all these particular cases and whether this constant is
generic or accidental; and having found this constant, we must
discover what sort of actuality it possesses.
It need hardly be said that we are not to affirm Relation where
one thing is simply an attribute of another, as a habit is an
attribute of a soul or of a body; it is not Relation when a soul
belongs to this individual or dwells in that body. Relation
enters only when the actuality of the relationships is derived
from no other source than Relation itself; the actuality must be,
not that which is characteristic of the substances in question,
but that which is specifically called relative. Thus double with
its correlative, half gives actuality neither to two yards'
length or the number two, nor to one yard's length or the number
one; what happens is that, when these quantities are viewed in
their relation, they are found to be not merely two and one
respectively, but to produce the assertion and to exhibit the
fact of standing one to the other in the condition of double and
half. Out of the objects in a certain conjunction this condition
of being double and half has issued as something distinct from
either; double and half have emerged as correlatives, and their
being is precisely this of mutual dependence; the double exists
by its superiority over the half, and the half by its
inferiority; there is no priority to distinguish double from
half; they arise simultaneously.
It is another question whether they endure simultaneously. Take
the case of father and son, and such relationships; the father
dies, but the other is still his son, and so with brothers.
Moreover, we see likeness where one of the like people is dead.
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